Revolutionising the way the world thinks … John Maynard Keynes.
Photograph: Hulton Getty

Academic texts that have shaped our society may range from John Berger’s landmark study of visual culture Ways of Seeing to Germaine Greer’s 1970 feminist classic The Female Eunuch, but when it comes to a vote to decide which was the most influential book for modern Britain, the public echoed America’s Bill Clinton: it’s the economy, stupid.

From a list of the 20 texts that shaped our times, curated by leading British academics as part of Academic Book Week, John Maynard Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was voted the most significant for modern Britain.

In what will disappoint prime minister Theresa May, the top five texts in the list had a distinct leaning to the left. In second place was The Invention of Tradition, edited by Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, with EP Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class coming in third. Berger, who died earlier this month, came fourth in a list dominated by historians. Fifth was Peter Fryer’s pioneering history of black people in Britain, Staying Power.

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Keynes knew what he was on to when he wrote The General Theory. In a letter to playwright and socialist George Bernard Shaw, he wrote: “I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory, which will largely revolutionise – not, I suppose, at once but in the course of the next few years – the way the world thinks about economic problems.”

The book formed the basis for Keynesian economics, which has been a hugely influential economic model in the UK since the Great Depression, and, thanks to Keynesian advocate Gordon Brown, played a key role following the 2008 crash. Brown’s famous quote “no more boom and bust” was a direct reference to The General Theory’s central thesis.

Keynes 1936 opus posits that during recessions economic output is strongly influenced by total spending in the economy in the short term and advocates state intervention to moderate “boom and bust” cycles. It challenged neoclassical economics by relating employment not to the price of labour but to the spending of money, which creates demand.

Commenting on the book, John Kay, visiting professor of economics at the London School of Economics, said: “The analysis of the book was the dominant influence on macroeconomic policies in the 30 years that followed the second world war, and we still debate, and employ, Keynesian policies today.”

Alan Staton, head of marketing and communications at the Booksellers Association, which co-sponsors the promotion, said that it would have been an unlikely winner even a year ago. He added: “Yet here we are with a newly minted industrial strategy from the PM that bears distinctly Keynesian hallmarks and is in desperate need of just such an economic road map as The General Theory.”

The book was chosen in a public poll to mark events across the country aimed at promoting scholarly books to the public for Academic Book Week, which finishes on Saturday. The event aims to “open up the dialogue” between makers and users of academic books.

The full list

A Brief History of Time (1968) by Stephen Hawking

Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain (2013) by Matthew J Goodwin and Robert Ford

Ways of Seeing (1972) by John Berger

Gender Trouble (1990) by Judith Butler

The Selfish Gene (1976) by Richard Dawkins

Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885) by AV Dicey

Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (1984) by Peter Fryer

The Double Helix (1968) by James Watson

The Invention of Tradition (1983) edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger

The Making of the English Working Class (1963) by EP Thompson

Purity and Danger (1966) by Mary Douglas

The Uses of Literacy (1957) by Richard Hoggart

Poverty in the United Kingdom (1979) by Peter Townsend

Orientalism (1978) by Edward Said

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) by John Maynard Keynes